I know a lot of people believe that first person is the closest, most intimate mode of narrative, the one that reveals the deepest truth about a character. But as a playwright, I have a different perspective. In a play, every character speaks in the first person, but the audience sees that each character’s perspective is necessarily limited—the world of the play is much bigger than any one individual, and each character can only see her own narrow sliver of what’s around her.
As a playwright, whenever I hear a character launch into a first-person monologue about who they think they are, what they believe, etc., I automatically hear it with skepticism, knowing that the play itself—if it’s any good—will ultimately reveal the holes in that character’s claims. So for me, first person has always been the most narrow mode of narrative, often deluded and self-serving, or at the very least isolated from the world.
Author and playwright Madeleine George on the first person POV, in her interview for my YA Pride series
(via malindalo)
I agree with this! First person to me is more obviously lying: you’re saying ‘I’ without meaning it every line. I love messing about with POVs.
